You can fix your timinings as long as your tasks are completed by dates. Your ideas can be heard by higher communication directly, no need to go through many layers and get affected by petty politics

Cons

Too much work, not many benefits for employees apart usual perks like internet etc. Since a small company, will end up doing many things (scripting, integration etc) other than just coding. This might be a con few people.

Finally I decided to take some time off and write a review. Not to rant but to help others make an informed decision for their career. Sandvine is a company having a good product and lot of talented engineers. The top management is experienced and capable to steering company to success. Good work culture, flexible working hours, opportunity to work on latest technologies, industry standard pay and free food are of avail. When Sandvine started it's center in India it was a great place to work. These were the reasons I joined Sandvine during the time when Sandvine started it's development center in India. I enjoyed working for the organization for most of the time I was with Sandvine. While Sandvine Canada continues to be a great place to work, unfortunately India center couldn't keep up the goodness it started with.

Cons

As I wrote in the "Pros" section, Sandvine India started great but it couldn't maintain the initial spirit to stay a great place to work. Within two years "club of well connected" have took over the control of Sandvine India to most extent. Though zero politics is one of the Sandvine ways but in it's not the chosen way in Sandvine India's day to day activities. Sandvine hired many talented professionals, managers and engineers, but most of the talented engineers and managers either moved out or forced to make a move. Many times engineers will be asked to do odds jobs. Not because of business need but to sideline the engineer so that the favorites can be given good pie and their accomplishments can be highlighted. Most of the reviews invariably mention longer work hours and slogging during weekends. Management will give an excuse that Sandvine works a startup company but it is all due to wrong effort estimation and poor planning by the management. If successive projects slip the schedule by weeks or months even when more resources were pooled in, it is only due to gross mismanagement. India management has no clue about code complexity and only looks into number of lines of code when it comes to effort estimation. And the result is that whole team slogging over 10 to 12 hours on daily basis. At the end management pushes the blame to engineers. Managers are more into micro management rather than understanding the complexities of the technology and product that can help them plan projects better. But they are all interested in giving very tight (most of the times, impossible targets to please the masters in Canada). When Sandvine started in India, all the good activities like lunch and learn sessions, idea generation and innovation generation were promoted and practiced regularly, but all these activities eventually stopped and all you are expected to do is fixing bugs. The top management is experienced and open. Even few senior people in India office are very good but most of the control is highjacked by a set of "well connected people" who aren't open to an honest feedback. So forget about difference of opinion! Sandvine India was planned as a development center but has reduced to a service center.

Advice to Management

There is no doubt that top management is visionary, experienced and dedicated towards success of the company. They are working very hard to make Sandvine a billion dollar company. But it is important for top management to weed out politics from Sandvine for once and all. It's not hard to find the political brains inside the organization, just need to take smart decision of promoting the non-political, sincere, talented employees and show door to those who are surviving in the company due to their connections and politics.

Current Employee - Technical Support Engineer in Waterloo, ON (Canada)

Current Employee - Technical Support Engineer in Waterloo, ON (Canada)

I have been working at Sandvine full-time (More than a year)

Doesn't Recommend

Neutral Outlook

Approves of CEO

Doesn't Recommend

Neutral Outlook

Approves of CEO

Pros

Great team work. People are nice and caring in general.

Cons

Working extra hours to finish work. Documentation is poor. New comer remains upset as he hears different answers for the same questions. Company will loose all its strength if employees with the longer duration leave the company.

Advice to Management

Too much hiring from RIM may spoil the culture. Already employees are not happy with the decision making of those who joined from RIM. Discrimination is felt especially towards promotions.